Linger
by gryffindormischief
Summary: Father's Day has never been that important to Harry.


A/N: I combined this with a prompt I got like a year and a half ago I'm pretty sure, which was a request for some kind of Father's Day fic. It's kinda sad but sweet too I think. Maybe I'll write a cute and funny father's day thing someday. ha.

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Harry went nearly a quarter of a century without really thinking too deeply about Father's Day. It was just some abstract concept that children with living fathers celebrated and usually meant he got shunted off to Mrs. Figg's house for dry cake and cat photos.

Not to say that he didn't consider it at all. He knew there was a hole in his life where a father should be. It became a little more glaring after he saw physical proof that his father wasn't just some hero he dreamed up late at night with only the spiders for company – pictures, memories, even Sirius and Remus. Confirmation that his father had been real and alive and had loved him, if the letter penned by his own mother's hand was to be believed. And of all the things that he questioned in his life, that scrap of paper with curving letters and the faint smell of spring was never something he could fathom distrusting.

Still, he never felt the need to celebrate his father on some randomly selected date with absolutely no personal significance. There were other days he felt his father's echo through the years, days where he got that heady feeling of _belonging_ because of someone he barely remembered. Some days are more obvious – Hallowe'en, his birthday – and others were one-time experiences that he'll never forget – the forest where he'd gazed into those ghostly hazel eyes, the day he rescued himself and Sirius with the ripple of his father.

So he's never given much thought to Father's Day. Until he's months away from being a father himself and he finds himself planning an afternoon trip to Godric's Hollow before he can think about it. He doesn't remember Teddy's coming over until he's stumbling clumsily from the fireplace and brushing soot off his freckled cheeks. "Wotcher, Harry."

Harry pauses, stepping back out of his trainers and dusting Teddy's shoulders. "Hey Ted. How's Gran?"

Teddy shrugs his lanky shoulders. "She's alright. Bit sad I guess."

They wander into the kitchen side by side and Harry slides a glass of pumpkin juice across the counter while Teddy scrambles up onto a barstool. Harry watches with a small smile, barely comprehending this is the same little bundle he juggled awkwardly that first summer of freedom. "How are _you_?"

Another shrug. Harry knows by now Teddy likes to puzzle things out a bit before he speaks his mind, so he lets silence fall and slices an apple into quarters, then eighths, and crunches into a wedge. Teddy does the same, his uneven baby teeth pearly against the fruit slice. "D'you know what Sunday is?"

Harry sips his juice slowly. "Father's Day?"

Teddy nods, looking small as his hair shifts colors slowly from bright blue to his natural pale brown. "We never celebrate it. Well except for Grandpa Arthur."

Ruffling Teddy's hair lightly, Harry leans across the counter. "Why haven't you said anything before? I never- I didn't want to try and take your dad's place."

Chubby cheeks reddening, Teddy twists his glass between his hands. "I didn't worry 'bout it. But some of the other kids – could I go _see_ my dad?" he pauses, "I mean, I know we go lots already. But – _special_?"

Harry lets it go when Teddy swipes at a stray tear slipping down his face, leaving enough time between that and when he rounds the counter to gather Teddy close that he has plausible deniability. A few quiet hiccups and Teddy's jerky breaths are the only break in the quiet for a few minutes, but when he feels him calming, Harry slows his strokes over Teddy's back, waiting until later to let the guilt for letting this go unnoticed wait until later to settle. "We could go together. If you want."

A sniff and Teddy nods again, cozy against Harry's chest. "Then you could see yours too."

Harry presses a kiss to Teddy's hair. "That sounds good mate."

Teddy shifts around for a moment, which isn't all that unusual given the general wiggly-ness of five year olds, but he doesn't pull away, just lifts up two squares of colorful paper decorated with crayon and glue. "I made 'em. One for yours and one for mine."

The first is Gryffindor red, dominated by two lanky figures with wild black hair and over-large round glasses – either playing Quidditch or sporting an extra leg. The second emerges from Teddy's pocket, slightly wrinkled like the first, a tall man with a wide smile holding hands with a short round faced boy with a shock of bright green hair. Teddy smooths them out on the counter top and folds his hands, very officious. "I figured you'd want t'write your own dad's name."

Teddy's too wrapped up in grabbing for one of the crayons Harry and Ginny keep for him to see Harry blink away his own tears, only half because of his father, and scrambles back up the barstool with a blue and a purple. "Pick one."

And while Teddy is genuinely offering the choice, the tinge of purple at the tips of his hair hint at his true desires. So Harry swipes the blue and fills out the card with blocky letters, only pausing to help Teddy sound out the spelling on his own once or twice.

Before they leave for Godric's Hollow, Harry scratches out a note telling Ginny where they've gone and holds Teddy close as they apparate. It's nearly completely opposite from the first time Harry visited the small graveyard, trees covered in green, sunlight spearing through the gaps, and grass bright and sharp smelling beneath his feet.

Teddy's childish trainers skip over the twigs and leaves that litter the ground, uncharacteristically easy as they move toward the twin headstones a few rows down from Harry's parents. While Teddy kneels jerkily, setting his card against the stone and murmuring quietly, face pressed close to Remus' name, Harry busies himself conjuring a spray of tiger lilies and lays them beneath Tonks' name.

It's quiet, save for the occasional birds calling overhead, when Teddy stands and his small hand slips into Harry's larger, calloused one. Wordlessly, Harry leads Teddy back to the single headstone that marks his parents final resting place.

Surprisingly, Teddy kneels again and tugs Harry after him. "'lo Mr. Potter. I'm Harry's godson. My dad was Remus," he sniffles quiet, "I guess he's told you most things 'bout us."

Harry's throat goes scratchy as his eyes fill. Teddy doesn't pause for longer than it takes to swipe under his round nose, so like Tonks'. "You must've been a good dad though. Since Harry's s'good being like mine," he looks thoughtful, "He's never tried to replace him, but he knows just how to be like one."

Harry blinks away tears and lets his arm wrap around Teddy's shoulders, pulling him close. He snuggles close to Harry's chest. "So thanks for letting me have him."

They both take deep breaths, enough in unison that they share a watery laugh in the luckily empty churchyard.

Once their breathing returns to normal, Harry combs his fingers through Teddy's purple tinged locks. "Y'know what our dads would want us to do now?"

Teddy sniffs. "What?"

"Eat enough ice cream to spoil our dinners."


End file.
